War/History/Claiming Voice

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War/History/Claiming Voice

2009-10-26 07:52

This week, I am working on finishing up the John Rutter Brooke Papers, the first collection I am processing as part of the Digital Center for Americana.

J.R. Brooke

The collections that are part of the project were chosen because of their Civil War-related content, so imagine my surprise when I realized that the Brooke collection has much more to do with the US Army's "Sioux Campaign" in 1890-1891, which culminated in the slaughter of many hundreds of Lakota Sioux men, women and children at Wounded Knee.  Brooke also sat at the helm of the military takeover of Puerto Rico and Cuba in 1898-1899.   I spent more time than I should have reading through some of the letters about the military movements and directives leading up to Wounded Knee, but I couldn't help myself.  Knowing the outcome of the situation already, I read these letters with a pounding heart as the communications increased between December 26th and  29th.

photo taken by the 3rd Infantry division

When I am working with material dealing with the nastiest chapters of our nation's history, I am filled with a sense of sadness and heaviness as my worst feelings about the historical legacy of the United States are confirmed before my eyes.  I felt this in my last processing project, when I was reading through papers dealing with the Chew family's plantations and the enslaved people who suffered without assurance of adequate food or clothing or the prospect of freedom.

I struggled to maintain a sense of objectivity about the people who created this record of history.  I wondered how to give a voice to those people whose voices were silenced through their enslavement.  I tried to give their names when I knew them, so that their stories could be uncovered by researchers and ancestors.  I feel this same sense of struggle when reading about Wounded Knee.  How can the real stories of these events be told?  My instinct directs me to contact indigenous groups who are documenting their own history so that they know about these papers and can use them to tell the story of their people.

As an archivist, I know my job is not to tell my version of history, however true and real it may feel to me.  I know that my sympathies lie with the people whose voices have rarely been heard in history texts, yet my job is to present descriptions of materials without bias (as much as that is possible for anyone).  These issues were brought to the forefront of my mind at the Chew event on October 14th, which was billed as a celebration of the end of the project.

I wanted to educate the event's attendees about how many topical areas are covered in the collection, how rich the material is, and how much it can offer to scholars and researchers.  This "celebration" turned into a contentious discussion during the Q&A (read Matthew's post for a more detailed perspective on the evening), but it got me thinking a lot about the view we bring to our work, and the language we use to describe what we have in front of us.  It matters--all of our biases and personal views and resistances are there in the way we choose words, the way we focus our attention, and the ways we are willing (or not) to engage in debate about these issues.  The fact that these issues are in the forefront of my mind now is extremely valuable, especially as I begin to describe another collection filled with painful, and potentially volatile, material.

We have much to heal in this country--prejudices related to ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, disability, and many other things do divide us.   These collections offer us an opportunity to work toward healing these divisions by giving the power of interpretation back to the public, and offering groups whose history has been erased or covered over the chance to reclaim some of their story.  While I bear a heavy burden when it comes to the choices I make in description, by making the papers accessible and available to researchers, their voices eventually become the conversation and my voice becomes more of a background hum that tells you where to find that paper with a date and name.  I do my best to provide access points and hope that groundbreaking and thoughtful histories come next.

Comments

CM, after reading this 'post' which reveals much about your relationship not just to your work but to 'history' and people--I think I understand a little of your engagement with the material in the Brooke collection. I am now VERY curious about the contents of this collection in regard to WK. Thank you very much for your posts regarding your work.

Regards, E. Wojcik

Submitted by Cathleen Miller (not verified) on

E.W.,

I hope that some day you'll be able to make the trip here to look at the collection. Though I know it's not exactly filled with personal revelations, I do think the Brooke papers has a lot to offer in terms of understanding that very tragic chapter in U.S. history. Thanks for your interest, and let me know if there's anything else I can do to assist!

Be well,

Cathleen

Submitted by Mike Ayoub (not verified) on

Cathleen, what a lovely review. JRB was an ancestor of mine (mother's side obviously). I have just finished writing a book on another ancestor (whose diary also resides with the PHS) entitled the Campfire Chronicles, Words and deeds of the 88th Pennsylvania. That ten year labor of love behind me, I was beginning my research on JRB and came across your essay. Do I understand correctly that you have transcribed his correspondence and that it is now available digitally? If so how might I access it. Having transcribed a number of large diaries and letters, my hat is off to you. But then, I have found there is nothing quite so gratifying as giving those old boys a voice again. Look forward to hearing from you//Mike

marcienmike@hotmail.com

Submitted by Dana Dorman (not verified) on

Mike,

We have not transcribed Brooke's correspondence, though Cathleen read through some of it to create a finding aid for researchers interested in using the collection.

You can access the finding aid for the Brooke papers at:

http://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/b/brooke0078.html

We did create a handful of digital signpost images that show researchers the types of materials they'll find in the Brooke papers. We're in the process of creating tools to allow researchers to access those images, but they're not accessible yet. In the meantime, you can learn more about how we select the digital signpost images, and the overall Digital Center for Americana project, in this post: http://processandpreserve.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/from-pen-and-paper-to...

Good luck with your continued research,

Dana Dorman

Project Archivist

Submitted by Mike Ayoub (not verified) on

Dana,

Thats good to know. If I wished to undertake the transcription of the JRB letters/diary in concert with PHS efforts, how would I best go about accessing orignals?

(I'm in Virginia, so regular trips to the PHS would be problematic). Thanks for the great work you and the PHS are doing.

Mike

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